Northern lights
The northern lights glow when charged particles from the sun, often thrown out by an eruption one to three days earlier, strike the upper air. Lapland lore read the aurora as a sign of trouble and sometimes war.
What it may mean
The green glow over the trees tonight was set in motion a day or more ago, ninety-odd million miles away. A burst on the sun threw out a cloud of charged particles that crossed space for one to three days, and only now, meeting Earth's magnetic field, does it light up the sky. By the time you see the show, its cause is old news. Much of what happens in a life arrives the same way. A kind word from last week surfaces as confidence today; a decision made years ago glows now as a home or a friendship. When the northern lights appear, look for the delayed effects in your own sky, and remember that today's small actions may light up some later night.
Depending on how you saw it
Far south of where they belong
During strong solar storms the lights reach far beyond the Arctic, and people in places that rarely see them stand in parking lots and backyards staring north. When did something you had only read about show up in your own backyard?
Spirits playing ball
Inuit lore, recorded in 1903 under the old name Eskimo, said the aurora was caused by departed spirits playing ball with a walrus head. Which explanation from your elders do you still find more beautiful than the science?
Fires at the top of the world
The Makah, by Daniels and Stevans's account, explained the glow as coming from the fires of a tiny people living on the ice near the north pole, boiling blubber. What do you imagine is happening in the places you will never see?
Why it happens in nature
Auroras form when charged particles from the sun, carried by the solar wind, are steered by Earth's magnetic field toward the poles and strike gases high in the atmosphere. Oxygen glows green and, higher up, red; nitrogen adds blue and purple. After a large eruption on the sun the particles take about one to three days to arrive, and strong storms push the lights far south.
What folk beliefs say
Lapland
The aurora borealis in Lapland foretells trouble and sometimes war, a 1903 collection says.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 936. View the page
Arctic (Inuit)
The Inuit, called Eskimos in the source, believed the aurora borealis was caused by departed spirits playing ball with the head of a walrus, the same collection says.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 936. View the page
Makah (Pacific Northwest)
The Makah believed the aurora borealis to be the light of fires kept by a tribe of tiny people who live on the ice near the north pole and boil blubber.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 936. View the page
To reflect on
Which glow in your life today was set off by something you did, or someone did for you, long before?